Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ismail Baghaei confirmed that the currently ongoing negotiations focus on ending the war on various fronts, including the Lebanese arena, denying the validity of reports that talked about discussing files related to the Iranian nuclear program during the talks.
Baghaei said, in statements to IRNA, that “the focus at this stage is on stopping the war on all fronts, including Lebanon,” stressing that what is being circulated regarding enriched materials or the nuclear enrichment file is “mere media speculation that lacks credibility.”
The Iranian position comes in light of the escalation of regional tension and the continuation of political and diplomatic contacts related to the war, amid international efforts to contain the escalation and prevent the region from sliding into a broader confrontation.
On the other hand, Israeli media revealed a growing state of frustration within the Israeli army on the southern Lebanon front, with an increasing number of casualties and continued uncertainty about military targets.
The newspapers “Maariv”, “Haaretz” and “Israel Hayom” quoted senior officers as saying that the forces face complex challenges, most notably the difficulty of monitoring Hezbollah’s marches, noting that a large part of the soldiers’ tasks is focused on demolishing homes in Lebanese villages, without clarity in the general strategy of operations.
In a related context, Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported that the Israeli security establishment is preparing for the possibility of renewed war with Iran, in light of internal estimates that the current confrontation “will not be the last round.”
According to Israeli estimates, there is still a large gap between Washington and Tehran regarding the nuclear file, while Tel Aviv shows increasing concern about the continuation of the Iranian ballistic missile program outside the framework of negotiations.
The newspaper pointed out that before the war, Iran possessed more than 2,000 ballistic missiles, and that about half of this stock still exists despite the recent strikes, at a time when the Iranians are working to rehabilitate the missile tunnels and production facilities that were damaged during the confrontations.
